Brevard County, FL, Commission Meeting
20 Oct 2023
Chase Hansel (323 words)

Thank you for having me. I come today to advocate for understanding of our fellow neighbors. When I say neighbor I’d like to propose that everyone in this room is a neighbor. Maybe not two doors down, but think of all the folks here as just a few short streets away.

Being a good neighbor doesn’t mean you have to be best friends with someone, or love everything they do. It does mean you are going to be with them for a long time, so you should get to know them a little and try to make common cause.

These days it feels like we are encouraged to think in terms of the “righteous us” and the stupid “evil them”. I think instead we are all just people trying to do right by our families and make a better place to live for our kids and improve our general situation. That probably describes all of us.

Mr Rogers once said "Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors." When someone expresses a belief or point of view on an issue that you disagree with; respond with curiosity instead of contempt. Ask why, and you might find out that though you don’t agree with someone’s solution, you both see the same problem. Listen with a loving heart and understand that they have wants and desires and fears much like your own that they are trying to satisfy. That is at least a place to start.

Cynicism is easy and makes you sound wise and experienced. Compassion is hard and may sound naive. In the end we are all better off if we try to listen to one another instead of talking past one another. If we try to be a bit more neighborly we can make this home we call brevard a more friendly and better place to be. So I ask, won’t you be my neighbor?

Thank you.

(Invocation provided by the Humanist Community of the Space Coast)